Let´s inquire together

For a very long time, I was bewildered by Krishnamurti, the anti-guru or perhaps anti-guru-guru of fallen Theosophy Messiah fame. However, I recently had a higher realization of sorts, and finally grokked the man. Yes, his message of non-theism, no-soul, individual liberation and instant enlightenment is a modernist form of Buddhism, perhaps of Zen Buddhism. At the very least, there is an obvious family likeness with such school. 

However, one thing still confused me until the other day. What on earth is K´s *method*, his "yoga", so to speak? I got the answer after carefully listening to his interminable, meandering speeches. He constantly uses the term "inquire" and often accuses his interlocutors of "not inquiring anymore". It then dawned on me that "inquire" must be a technical term. It refers to Krishnamurti´s own speeches. Krishnamurti´s long-winding satsangs *are* the method. We are supposed to become instantly (no less) enlightened by listening very carefully to his talk, and "inquire" together with him. This strikes me as strange, since the goal of the inquiry is to end discursive or conceptual thinking. But how can you end discursive thinking by discursive speech? Speech is, almost by definition, discursive and conceptual. Somehow, K wanted to short circuit our discursive mind...by discursive speech! Many minds probably have been short fused by this annoying character, but has anyone actually become any wiser?

That K´s method often blew up in his face is obvious from the discussion "Death" (available on YouTube through the link above, or in the book "Can Humanity Change?"), where it´s painfully obvious that everyone in the room understands perfectly what Krishnamurti is saying, and even agree with him. Yet, Krishnamurti can´t have this. It means that nobody is "inquiring" anymore, so he constantly pretends as if the other participants have misunderstood him, shouting "No, no", repeating himself over and over like a broken record, and frankly coming across as Mr Chance in that old Peter Sellers movie. It´s embarrasing to watch. Still, there is a bizarre logic at work here: Rahula, Bohm and the others understand Krishnamurti, but of course that´s a "conceptual" understanding rather than the non-conceptual satori K wants to induce, forcing him to continue the "inquiry" indefinitely, in the hope that somebody will ultimately get it and "break with the stream" . And disappear into mid air?

K´s supporters (who are clearly still down here, swimming around along with the rest of us) love to hate Rahula, but it´s obvious that the Lankan Buddhist scholar is on to something. First, he is right that Krishnamurti´s message *is* very similar to Buddhism. Second, his method is meditation. Now, I don´t claim to know if vipassana or jhana will take you anywhere closer to enlightenment, but presumably they can at least empty your mind of concepts and discursive thinking (including Krishnamurti´s discourses). K´s inquiry doesn´t seem to have this effect...

It´s been a fascinating week of inquiry. 

The esoteric Krishnamurti

I don´t remember where I read this...

Exoterically, Krishnamurti had a message many people associated with Advaita Vedanta or some form of Buddhist modernism. However, K also had an esoteric message. He believed in...the shakti. If so, what he calls "Love" in his public speeches is really Shakti. However, K refused to teach kundalini yoga to Westerners, since it was too dangerous (probably a true observation, all things considered). 

This is why David Bohm became interested in K´s message. Bohm regarded the shakti as a very real energy field "beyond" or "behind" the cosmos. It could be accessed through our minds, if we could only find the right technique to do so. Bohm was a former Marxist who had given up on radical societal change through material means. However, he still believed in the necessity of a world-wide transformation, and wondered whether access to this energy could change man - all men (and women) - for the better. In other words, he never gave up the global collectivist vision of Marxism. 

But as I said, I don´t know where I read all of the above (in two different places, I think).

Another thing also struck me. Why didn´t Bohm establish contacts with Sri Aurobindo instead? Perhaps he simply never met him. After all, Aurobindo lived in Pondicherry and wasn´t easily available, not even to world famous quantum physicists!

With that, I leave you for now. 

Why compare?

Somebody else entirely 

"Can Humanity Change? J. Krishnamurti in Dialogue with Buddhists" is a book containing the transcripts of several discussions between Jiddu Krishnamurti and a Buddhist scholar from Sri Lanka, Walpola Rahula. A few other people, most notably David Bohm, also participate in the exchanges, which took place in 1978-79 at Brockwood Park in England. The conservations are also available free of charge on the YouTube channel of the Krishnamurti Foundation ("J. Krishnamurti - Official Channel"). The videos contain funny details obviously not seen in the book, such as the presence of teenage girls or bearded hippies in the audience! It´s also fun to watch the often bewildered expressions of Rahula and Bohm as they try to follow the meandering expositions of Krishnamurti. 

It seems Rahula had sort-of-challenged Krishnamurti to a debate on Buddhism, since both the Lankan scholar and other Buddhists had noted strong similarities between K´s message and that attributed to the Buddha. I think Rahula was right in this. Krishnamurti´s message could indeed be seen as a modernized version of Buddhism, Zen Buddhism in particular. Radical Buddhism could be another way of putting it. Or Zen without motorcycle maintenance? Of course, the anti-guru Krishnamurti refuses to be pidgeon-holed liked this, and retorts to the suggestion that he has a Buddhist-sounding message with the question "Why compare?". To which Rahula has no real answer. Krishnamurti also shrewdly asks the scholar why Buddhist rituals, techniques and dogmas aren´t "conditioned", if everything else in samsara is conditioned? Indeed, Rahula is often forced to concede that Krishnamurti may be right, making the entire "debate" feel somewhat pointless...

Still, there probably is a genuine disagreement in there somewhere. To Krishnamurti, enlightenment must be spontaneous and instantaneous, otherwise it is nothing. No "process", thinking or evolution in time can be involved. Every theory *about* enlightenment leads away from it, by conditioning the mind and erecting further barriers between it and the goal. Indeed, even the idea that enlightenment is a goal, something to be sought or attained, is in itself a step away from it! Obviously, rituals or dogmas are obstacles to liberation. Rahula (and Bohm) finds this hard to accept, or even comprehend. To Rahula, there is an evolution from conditioned existence towards the enlightened state of the arhat, at least within our "relative time" or "relative truth" (he often sounds "Mahayanish" despite presumably being a Theravadin). 

His favorite simile is that the Buddha´s teaching is like a boat taking somebody across a river (the river being samsara). The boat can be destroyed only after the passenger has safely reached the other shore. Krishnamurti questions this - to coin a simile of mine own, it´s as if he wants us to jump across the river in one gigantic stride! But perhaps K would have preferred a different simile: we are already at the other side of the river, but don´t realize it since we have our eyes closed. The only thing we have to do is open them... A simile he does use is that of seeing a snake and instantly realizing that its dangerous, recoiling from it. In the same way, but positively, enlightenment must be an instant realization of a *fact*, not some pretty theory or dogma about some or the other. 

What´s less clear is what method (if any) Krishnamurti proposed to reach this goal (or not-reach the non-goal). Perhaps his meandering "inquiries" *are* the method? Clearly, the World Teacher wasn´t very succesful! This is most obvious in the section "Life After Death", where K goes on and on for over an hour, arguing points everyone really seems to agree with, and which could have been dispensed with in under 15 minutes. He also seems to deliberately create confusion by contradicting himself, use familiar words in a strange way, and so on. It´s almost as if he goes out of his way to sound special (despite constantly claiming the opposite), rather than just being another basic Buddhist. 

Even if we assume that the Buddha originally had a message like Krishnamurti, Buddha (or his disciples) must have realized that it´s essentially impossible to impart to ordinary mortals, and hence developed new "processes" (and dogmas) to bring people closer to the goal. You could also question K in a much more radical way: what if his non-goal isn´t just impossible, but also undesirable? The answer to the question "Can Humanity Change?" would then be "Probably not" followed by a "Thank goodness"!  

Running away from Krishnamurti

 

The main criticism against Jiddu Krishnamurti seems to be "he didn´t answer the question". (OK, I know he is deceased, or perhaps reincarnated into another root-race, but since he is forever new on YouTube, I might as well speak of him in the present tense!) For a long time, I shared this criticism. At the very least, I thought, he "answers" people´s questions in an *extremely* roundabout fashion. But then, I started thinking, or perhaps non-thinking. Many of his fans react in a way that mirrors the reactions of his criticis. They essentially concede that K didn´t answer the questions, but then make up strange excuses for it: K tries to communicate the uncommunicable, K´s explanations are really beyond all explanations, in short, K is enlightened so how *dare* you, a mere inquisitive mortal monad, question (!) him. Or not really so strange, since this is how all guru-worshippers always defend their chosen savior-figure. 

Something´s clearly up.

I think this becomes obvious when Krishnamurti explicitly *does* answer a query. Thus, in one of the clips linked to above, he very explicitly says that he doesn´t believe in God, and that man is left to his own devices, as if all alone in a jungle. How is that *not* answering the question? Really, we are hard to please! It´s also obvious from the clips that K didn´t believe in an immortal soul (at least not in the traditional sense), that he doesn´t regard enlightenment as a process of discreet stages but as something effortless and instantaneous, and that he absolutely repudiates all gurus. Only a weak person needs a savior. He also mocks the notion of atman ("Who is he? Who is Atman?") and the soul ("Soul? What do you mean? The sole of a shoe?"). 

I think people pretend not to understand Krishnamurti´s answers because they, at bottom, make them feel uncomfortable. Something which tends to confirm his message, ironically enough. Krishnamurti tries to declutch the guru-worshippers from the chosen objects of their worship. This is probably doomed to fail. We all need a God or a guru (or a nanny state). That´s why it´s safer pretending that you don´t understand, or fall down before his lotus feet, making *him* the new guru, once again pretending that you don´t understand...

Maybe that´s the secret of the human condition. We are all running away from Krishnamurti.   

Brother Dugpa

“The Elder Brother” is a controversial and revealing look at Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854-1934), who together with Annie Besant led the Theosophical Society Adyar after the death of Theosophy's founder Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. I always considered the Theosophists to be a relatively sympathetic neo-spiritual group, despite their frequently vexing speculations about “root races”, “planetary rounds” and “ascended masters”. After reading Gregory Tillett's exposure of Leadbeater, I'm not so sure anymore.

There is considerable circumstantial evidence to suggest that Leadbeater was a pedophile or pederast who preyed on the children of unsuspecting Theosophists. During his investigations, Tillett came across documents showing that Leadbeater practiced and taught a form of sex magic during which the energy produced by male orgasm was used to trigger ecstatic “spiritual” experiences. He instructed pubescent boys in this form of “magic” and even organized sessions of collective masturbation! Of course, all these activities were strictly off the record. In Australia, “Bishop” Leadbeater (as he was often called) had contacts with an important member of the OTO, a group notorious for its sex magic. Tillett seem to believe that Leadbeater's contacts with boys was limited to teaching them masturbation, but that seems frankly unbelievable.

Leadbeater comes across as unsympathetic in other ways, too. He was something of a pathological liar, even lying about the date of his birth. He claimed to be seven years older than he actually was, and most details in his early biography are fictions. His supposed clairvoyance was based on something the author calls “forced imagination”, a technique which is almost guaranteed to create subjective illusions emerging from the seer's subconscious mind. Even some of his closest collaborators suspected that Leadbeater's clairvoyant research into the previous lives of various Theosophists were sheer fantasy. I also wonder about the extent of Leadbeater's knowledge. Judging by the book, Jiddu Krishnamurti (who was being groomed by the Theosophists to become the Vehicle for the World Teacher, i.e. a kind of Messiah), went through a protracted kundalini experience, something the bewildered Leadbeater didn't seem to understand. This from a person who claimed to be on a first name basis with the ascended masters! It's also interesting to note that Leadbeater wasn't a pupil of Madame Blavatsky and in fact met her only sporadically. Of course, the “bishop” claimed otherwise…

The non-controversial material in “The Elder Brother” is also interesting. Thus, it turns out that Leadbeater was politically conservative and privately disapproved of Annie Besant's political campaigns for Home Rule in India. In contrast to Besant, who had a background in socialism and feminism, Leadbeater was a fervent believer in the supremacy of the British Empire and its hierarchic social order. Ironically, he was of lowly birth himself, which to some extent explains his constant lying about his background – he was trying to create a more high-brow pedigree for himself. Leadbeater despised women, with the exception of Besant, and viewed World War I as part of a divine plan for a thoroughgoing cleansing before the expected arrival of the World Teacher. Germans were simply barbarians and British soldiers were actually giving them a favor by killing them, so they wouldn't accumulate more negative karma. A new “Aryan” civilization would arise in Australia, New Zealand and the American West Coast (sic).

Apart from the sex magic, Leadbeater's most important spiritual activities were strikingly similar to Spiritualism and High Church Anglicanism or Puseyism. These were Leadbeater's formative experiences before he became a Theosophist. Leadbeater had been a clergyman in the Church of England and a member of an Anglo-Catholic group. He had also been privately interested in the paranormal, and had studied Spiritualism and related phenomena during his considerable spare time. Tillett believes that Leadbeater's clairvoyant visions as a Theosophist are similar in kind to Spiritualist ditto. Leadbeater's fascination with liturgy and ritual found an outlet in the so-called Liberal Catholic Church, really a Theosophical front group (the “bishop” title comes from Leadbeater's position within this faux Catholic “church”).

Tillett encountered many obstacles while writing “The Elder Brother”. Many Adyar Theosophists still regard Leadbeater as a highly accomplished occultist, perhaps even a Master in his own right. Many other people, including dissident Theosophists, regard him as an impostor or worse. Krishnamurti simply called him “evil”, while another Theosophist encountered by the author referred to Leadbeater as an agent of the “Dugpas”, which in this context presumably refers to black magicians. The author's conclusions concerning secret sex magic probably cannot be independently verified, since permission to look at the relevant documents was withdrawn almost as quickly as it was given, so we really only have Tillett's own testimony to go on (unless some Dugpa on Twitter has spilled the beans lately). That being said, the author should be commended for boldly go where no physical plane creature has gone before, and his disturbing exposure of C W Leadbeater deserves four stars.

New Age before the New Age?

This volume contains 12 issues of "The Theosophical Messenger", also called "The American Theosophist". They were published from October 1910 to September 1911. I skimmed six of the issues. The magazine was published by the American section of the Theosophical Society Adyar, led by Annie Besant and C. W. Leadbeater.

What strikes the reader almost immediately are the similarities between Adyar Theosophy and later New Age thinking. Indeed, Theosophy is one of the fonts of inspiration for the New Age. "The Theosophical Messenger" is very syncretistic (or broad-minded). Apart from material based on Blavatsky's "The Secret Doctrine" about planetary chains and root-races, there are articles on the esoteric interpretation of the Catholic mass, Plato, Appolonius of Tyana, Christian knighthood and the Holy Grail, vampires, ghosts, Co-Masonry and Tibet. There is even a positive appreciation of Francis Bacon. The Lords of Venus (transformed into UFO occupants by later contactees) are mentioned, as is Shamballa. More surprising are pro-Muslim articles written by Annie Besant. Ironically, one issues of the magazine carriers a portrait of Muhammad! Ooops.

The extensive activities of the Adyar organization are evident from several articles about Esperanto, including the announcement of an Esperanto League of the TS Order of Service. The Theosophists also express support for the peace movement, for reformist socialism and (of course) for Hinduism and Buddhism. However, demands for Home Rule in India are absent. Besant presumably still kept a low political profile (that would change a few years later).

The magazine also contains very bizarre material. The second coming of Christ is said to be imminent. Of course, "Christ" was really Jiddu Krishnamurti, an Indian Brahmin boy discovered by Leadbeater. Leadbeater's clairvoyant investigations "revealed" that Krishnamurti alias Alcyone had lived countless of previous lives, and these are meticulously documented. Here, the syncretism is more absurd than usual, with Alcyone's friends in Atlantis (?) having names such as Surya, Herakles, Mars, and so on. Leadbeater also claims that the famous 14th century Tibetan guru Tsong-kha-pa was a reincarnation of Jesus!

Sometimes, it's difficult to know whether an article is a piece of fiction or a supposed clairvoyant insight. Thus, Besant writes concerning Atlantis: "The last White Emperor was ruling, at the time of the story, in the old, old Capital City of the Golden Gate in Poseidonis; but some of the outlying nations were gradually banding themselves together under the mighty chieftain Oduarpa, to overthrowthe White Emperor and the traditional worship of the Sun. These kingdoms had become corrupt, wicked and selfish, and their priests served the Dark Gods of the Nether World. To bring about the downfall of the central empire and its ruler, Oduarpa saw that he must bring to his aid the forbidden powers of the darker magic, and to enlist in his rebellion the denizens of the Kingdom of Pan." Sounds like the prelude from a fantasy novel...

I also managed to find a couple of pieces that were self-ironic, presumably a rare trait in occult groups. One lecturer claims that his malfunctioning slide projector must be possessed by an evil spirit, while another says that he isn't coming back to North America in his next incarnation, due to all the blizzards!

Overall, "The American Theosophist" gives the impression of a movement that attempts to propagandize an esoteric message among the broad masses, for good or for worse. The whole thing feels very "astral", with spirits of the dead, demons and channelling. Occasionally, a more truly esoteric piece has been sneaked in. While I prefer Adyar to the group based at Point Loma, I must say that Adyar's gospel sounds like spirituality 101, combined with the absurdities typical of channelled messages. Overall, I would probably make a bad Theosophist...

The Steiner Question

“The Bodhisattva Question” by T.H. Meyer is an Anthroposophical book discussing whether or not Rudolf Steiner was a bodhisattva. After Steiner's death, the question was answered in the affirmative by Adolf Arenson, while Elizabeth Vreede denied it. Both Arenson and Vreede had been students of Steiner. To an outsider, whether or not Steiner was The Bodhisattva of the 20th century, or was directly inspired by him without being identical, sounds like a moot point, but apparently it's a hotly debated one within Anthroposophical circles.

If Steiner wasn't a bodhisattva, who is the actual 20th century saviour of mankind? Some people have pointed to Valentin Tomberg, a controversial choice given the fact that Tomberg was an apostate from the Anthroposophical Society. The Theosophists, from which Steiner split, had their own choice: Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was considered to be both a bodhisattva, the Christ and the World Teacher. Steiner denied that Krishnamurti could be the Christ who according to Steiner's research would soon appear “in the etheric” rather than physically in a human vessel. He also denied that a young boy could be initiated into the being and function of a bodhisattva. In Steiner's soteriology, the bodhisattva (who is a reincarnation of Jeshu bin Pandera, a mysterious personage mentioned in the Talmud and sometimes identified with Jesus of Nazareth) proclaims the Christ, without being identical to him.

By claiming that Steiner was The Bodhisattva (and hence the future Maitreya Buddha), Anthroposophists can elevate their founder to a very central role in the spiritual hierarchy, while simultaneously denying any competing claims to bodhisattva status, buddhahood or Christhood. However, Steiner himself apparently never explicitly pointed to himself as a bodhisattva, making the position of the opposite camp somewhat logical, too: if Steiner's revelations are true, surely he was telling the truth when denying that he was a bodhisattva? Steiner also said that the bodhisattva always designates his successor, something Steiner never did.

“The Bodhisattva Question” is a rather “boring” book, and is probably of little interest to the general reader. You need to be extremely interested in the occult milieu (or everything connected to Krishnamurti) to sift through this material. However, if you are, chances are that T. H. Meyer's expositions on the Steiner Question will find its way to your bookshelf.